Can You Actually Win With Your Favorite Pokemon?

That one guy whose favorite Pokémon is Landorus-T is laughing in the corner.

I love that the primary message of this video is "ladder exists, play whatever you want"

one thing that I think is also important to mention is that due to the nature of the game some pokemon will necessarily overshadow others. Pokemon, in function, are simply 6 stat numbers with a list of abilities and moves associated with them, all of which have simple functions and properties, so there's only so many unique Pokemon you can design without them overlapping and the one that fits the meta best, be it thanks to better stats or more valuable options, outclassing the others. Even if every Pokemon was balanced around competitive play, a meta would still form with better and worse options depending on what traits are most valuable in the meta, and people would complain about their favorite being garbage

You know what would be a really fun and hilarious buff to give a mon? Give both versions of Zoroark Fake Out.

I think there’s another aspect to the saying that you can’t win with your favorites in competitive Pokémon. And that is that those people don’t just wanna use one of their favorites, they want to use ALL of their favorites. As an example, let’s say Timmy’s favorite Pokémon is Xatu, and he really wants to get into competitive Pokémon but he’s told Xatu isn’t a viable option. However he figures out a set that can make Xatu viable, but with a catch, that he has to use other Pokémon like Dondozo, Tatsugiri, Chien-Pao, all those guys, to complement the Xatu. The problem is that Timmy didn’t just want to use his favorite Pokémon Xatu, he also wanted to use his second favorite Pokémon, Donphan. But he can’t do that because then he already has a full team built around helping Xatu win. If he tries to make the team work with both Xatu and Donphan in mind, the whole team structure might fall apart. And if he proceeds with the original team except now with Donphan, then Donphan is just going to be deadweight. And what if Timmy wants to use all 6 of his party slots for his favorite Pokémon? He’s not gonna get very far with it. That is what I think people mean when they say that you can’t use your favorites to win. Cause even in that tournament winning team at the start of the video, sure Jumpluff was in there, but so was Flutter Mane and Great Tusk.

Knowing that Tinkaton has become one of my favourites in recent generations of Pokemon, I hope someday someone takes it to an official Pokemon tournament and wins with her so she will be known as the Pokemon Queen back in College

I mean, I think part of the issue is that 'winning with your favorites' is that while you can generally find a tier where one of your favorites has a role, it's very unlikely for your favorites to all align with a single tier so you either end up with 'Playing with ONE of your favorites/a team mostly not made of your favorites' or 'Making a bad team'.

"Can you win with your favorite pokemon?" Flutter Mane mains: Yes.

The problem most people have when wanting to use their favorites is that they have no clue how to build a team in the first place. Like you said, it’s possible but before you can use your favorites you need to know how to play the game which is gonna take time and effort.

I think what really gets the casual playerbase is that their favorites aren't always able to be used in a simple and risk free way for what you understand it to be, or have an entirely different function than what you want to imagine your favorite Pokémon doing

What I think a lot of casual players fail to realize is that competitive players dislike using the same mons over and over again as much as casuals dislike seeing it, but unfortunately Pokemon is ultimately a numbers game. How much damage a Pokemon deals to/takes from opposing top threats, speed tiers, useful moves, etc all need to be taken into account when determining viability and most Pokemon just get straight up outclassed by others

What if your favourite pokemon is Ledian? Or one of the elemental monkeys? I guess you just pray for the release of death. I feel like the most telling line in the video is 'of course we need our own Urshifu to compete'

Great video! Now do Flygon?

I always assumed that Karen was referring to the actual game. Like, you could take on the Elite Four with a Sableye and Stantler in tow.

As someone who has had zero VGC experience can also attest that the ladder before Great ball is kinda silly.

One thing a lot of people do that causes them to give up on winning with their favorites is bringing a full team of favorites. Pick one, give it a job to do, and build the rest of the team around it with either Pokemon that'll help your favorite do its job or will be helped by that job. Of course, if enough of your favorites are viable then you can also put together a team with multiple of them, but even then, I highly recommend not filling the entire team with favorites.

I have been playing quite well with my current favourite Pokémon Ogerpon. This really shows how you could win when using your favourites.

Counter-argument: No matter how good I am at competitive Pokemon, I will never be able to bring my Beedrill to any respectable level in competitive Scarlet and Violet. Its just impossible. ... No, literally. I can't. Beedrill is not in the game.

I think the biggest 'issue' with using your favorites is that, unless your favorites revolve around those defining the meta, your team comp is still going to look like 90% of other teams. You'll just have a single exception. Case in point, Honkrow is paired with Chien-Pao, Hisuian Arcanine, Rillaboom, Urshifu, and Goldengo. All of which are top picks.

Good thing Maractus has the Maractusite to mega evolve into mega rayquaza. Otherwise it would be hard to use